Noida, Ghaziabad to host school book exchange fairs - Hindustan Times
close_game
close_game

Noida, Ghaziabad to host school book exchange fairs

Mar 18, 2022 12:21 AM IST

Parents and guardians will be able to donate their ward’s old school books and in turn they can receive books donated by other students that will be useful for their child’s new academic session

In an effort to relieve parents from the burden of buying expensive books for their children’s new academic session, the Ghaziabad Parents’ Association (GPA) and the Gautam Budh Nagar Parents’ Welfare Society (GPWS) will organise a books exchange fair from March 20.

While the fair is being organised for the fifth time this year in Ghaziabad, it will be held for the very first time in Noida. (Representative image/Getty)
While the fair is being organised for the fifth time this year in Ghaziabad, it will be held for the very first time in Noida. (Representative image/Getty)

In Ghaziabad, the two-day fair will be held in three phases in Vaishali, Shastrinagar and Vijaynagar, while in Gautam Budh Nagar, the fair will be held in the community hall at Sector 52. Both the fairs will be held from Sunday (March 20).

Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now.

Parents and guardians will be able to donate their ward’s old school books and in turn they can receive books donated by other students that will be useful for their child’s new academic session.

“The fair assumes importance as for the last two years; many people have suffered financial hardships because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In order to relieve them from buying new books and notebooks at expensive prices for the new academic session, the fair is being organised. Moreover, it is also an eco-friendly move,” said Seema Tyagi, president of GPA.

Manoj Kataria, founder of GPWS, said that as the new academic session is about to begin, parents have been enquiring about old books for their wards.

“The queries of the parents’ community in Gautam Budh Nagar regarding old books for their wards have increased lately. However, parents find it difficult to find other students whose old books their wards can use. So, we decided to organise the book exchange fair to facilitate such parents,” said Kataria.

While the fair is being organised for the fifth time this year in Ghaziabad, it will be held for the very first time in Noida.

“We first started the fair in 2017 when only around 5,000 parents participated in the book exchange programme. However, in 2021, over 48,000 parents participated in the fair,” said Rajiv Tyagi, a representative of GPA.

In order to spread the word about the fair, the GPA is handing out pamphlets, sending social media messages and running rickshaws with loudspeakers in residential areas.

“Around 50 volunteers of GPA will help us organise the event and we will have over 20 counters that will be set up underneath a tent. There will be 10 counters for submitting old books and 10 counters for receiving them. Once a parent visits the fair with his or her children’s old books, we feed the class, school, subject and other details in an excel sheet in our laptops and create a database. If a parent comes to take books of a particular class and school, we will search for them in our database and provide the books,” said GPA vice-president Manoj Sharma.

The first phase of the Ghaziabad fair will be held on March 20 and 21 at the hockey stadium, near Raj gas agency in Shastrinagar. The second phase will be held on March 26 and 27 at the Ramlila ground in Sector 9, Vijaynagar. The dates and venue of the third phase that will be held in Vaishali are yet to be decided.

According to Kataria, only one phase of the GB Nagar fair has been scheduled as of now. “After March 20, the fair will also be held in the coming weeks but the dates and venue for the same are yet to be decided,” he said.

“The fair is a boon for parents as well as students as we often sell our children’s old books to the scrap dealers even though their condition is as good as new. I have been participating in this fair for the last three years and it is a boon for us. I will be participating this year as well,” said Geetika Mahajan, a resident of Vasundhara and mother of a class 8 student.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Share this article
  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    author-default-90x90

    Ashni Dhaor is a correspondent with Hindustan Times. She covers crime, education, health, politics, civic issues and environment in Ghaziabad city. She graduated from Delhi University in 2015 and has since been working with Hindustan Times since.

SHARE
Story Saved
Live Score
OPEN APP
Saved Articles
Following
My Reads
Sign out
New Delhi 0C
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Start 14 Days Free Trial Subscribe Now
Follow Us On